Hurricane Ida is moving into the Gulf and current tracking has the storm reaching the Gulf Coast late Monday evening. WWL reports Ida is gaining strength over the warm Gulf water while also downgrading into a tropical storm.
For more information on Ida as it becomes available, check out the National Weather Service’s National Hurricane Center site dedicated to the storm, located here, or continue to check into this blog.
In an email to individuals who have signed up for updates from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Chairman Inez Tenenbaum reveals a flurry of activity the government has carried out in testing and identifying Chinese drywall. While the email largely covers topics that have been posted on this blog, the amount that has been done by the government and efforts undertaken is a positive sign that the issue is being taken seriously and results will emerge eventually.
CPSC actions include the following:
1. To date, we have received nearly 1900 complaints from residents in 30 states about health and corrosion symptoms.
Hurricane insurance claims continue to be filed in the Gulf Coast, this time in Texas. The Southeast Texas Record reports a wide assortment of filings over the last week of October. Examples include:
Joseph and Julia Crow of Beaumont allege Texas Windstorm Insurance Association denied their claim for roof, water, wind, foundation, structural and contents damages caused to their home after Hurricane Ike struck on Sept. 13, 2008. TWIA denied the claim after its Vice President of Claims Reggie Warren assigned adjusters to investigate.
June Jennings of 1908 North 21st St. in Nederland alleges Texas Windstorm Insurance Association improperly paid her claim for dwelling and contents damages caused to her home after Hurricane Ike struck on Sept. 13, 2008.
The New York Times’ financial section, interestingly enough, did a report on how to know if your home contains Chinese drywall. While most of the signs have been featured in this blog, there are certain tips and tricks the article mentions that are unique and clever for detecting the presence of the dangerous gases that the toxic wallboard emits.
Jennifer Saranow Schultz notes
If your home has central air-conditioning, Danny Lipford, a television home improvement expert, recommends hanging a piece of silver jewelry or a silver utensil on a string in front of the return air filter and watching it over a few days to see if it corrodes. It’s a trick he learned about at a recent industry event.
In a huge turn of events, a Chinese drywall manufacturer has assuaged the fears of those who believed no lawsuit might ever emerge by agreeing to be served with the class action lawsuits brought forth by homeowners.
The Bradenton Herald reports
A Chinese drywall manufacturer has agreed to be served with a class-action lawsuit to be filed on behalf of homeowners, attorneys in the case said Monday.
Positive news for those looking for a federal response and action behind the Chinese drywall matter emerged this weekend with a Consumers Product Safety Commission report with a very notable inclusion. As reported by Sarasota’s Herald Tribune, buried within a long, 500-page report on Chinese drywall is a possible health diagnosis for the problems homeowners with the toxic import have been experiencing.
The Herald Tribune notes
The report issued by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and other agencies posits that victims might be experiencing “neurogenic inflammation” brought on by the “trigeminal nerve,” which branches out behind the face and throat with exposed endings in the nose.
A Happy (and safe) Halloween for all of our readers and friends from the Berniard Law Firm
In what may be a smoking gun of the evidentiary sort, federal investigators have found a chemical difference in the composure of Chinese drywall when compared to those products made within the country. While the discovery has yet to be the clear-cut indictment of the manufacturers of the imported wallboard, it is significant because it shows a clear difference between that drywall causing problems and domestic drywall that remains to be safe and not a cause for concern.
The New York Times reports
Federal investigators reported Thursday that imported Chinese drywall that homeowners have linked to health problems and odors had higher levels of some chemicals than its domestic counterparts.
The Virginia-Pilot profiles a few families harmed by Chinese drywall and the struggle they face in this dire time period. Within this piece is an interesting statement by a local elected official appealing to banks to avoid foreclosure on uninhabitable properties that have Chinese drywall installed within them.
The federal Consumer Product Safety Commission is investigating air-quality issues related to the drywall and plans to release some of its findings today and additional reports in the coming weeks. Several local homeowners also have sued the companies that manufactured and imported the drywall.
In the meantime, dozens of families across Hampton Roads face a dilemma similar to the Dunaways’: Continue to live in a home that could be making them sick, or move out and stack a rent payment on top of the mortgage bill.
A quick news piece emerging out of Houston demonstrates that though it has been a quiet hurricane season, the damage caused by previous years in which the Gulf Coast was not so lucky have still not been overcome. In Houston, individuals still living in FEMA trailers in the wake of Hurricane Ike have been notified that they will need to vacate and move on to more permanent housing.
Per Houston’s Daily News
Before Hurricane Ike, Sidney Lampman rented the first floor of her sister’s two-story house on West Hunter Drive in Old Bayou Vista. The hurricane flooded the house and, even though Lampman rented the property, rather than owned it, the Federal Emergency Management Agency gave her a mobile home while she looked for a new place to live.
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